We at Keystone Research Center and the We the People - Pennsylvania campaign know that a major challenge for Pennsylvania and for the nation is to enact policies that make the economy less rigged against working families.

Over the last couple months, we at the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center have been holding community conversations to hear from individuals across the state about the challenges they are facing and to understand what they would like to see done differently in Harrisburg. One young man we spoke to in recent weeks, Colten, told us his story. Colten has been homeless off and on over the last three years since his grandma committed suicide. He has been in and out of low wage retail jobs and struggles to secure affordable housing.

The House Health Committee recently approved a measure (H.B. 1659) that would impose mandatory work requirements for all able-bodied food stamp recipients. The legislation is now being fast-tracked for consideration before the full House.

Mandatory work requirements sound reasonable … until you know the facts.

One in seven Pennsylvanians currently use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps, to help buy the food they need to survive and feed their families. SNAP helps keep food on the table for thousands of low-wage and part-time workers who can’t find steady employment, veterans, people who are homeless, and people struggling with addictions, in addition to children, seniors, and people with disabilities.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) helps PA families put food on the table. But we know now that it accomplishes much more than that.

Research increasingly shows that SNAP, formerly known as Food Stamps, can ward against the long-term effects on children of experiencing poverty, abuse or neglect, parental substance abuse or mental illness, and exposure to violence—events that can take a toll on their well-being as adults. As a new Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report finds, SNAP helps form a strong foundation of health and well-being for low-income children by lifting millions of families out of poverty, improving food security, and helping improve health and academic achievement with long-lasting consequences.

It’s doing all that across Pennsylvania. SNAP is improving our children’s futures.

Goodbye and good riddance 2015… A bruising and historic budget fight ended in an unsatisfactory stalemate with the governor’s signing and blue-lining of an inadequate budget passed by the General Assembly after the House and Senate walked away from a negotiated compromise. Education funding remains far from resolved, but school districts did receive enough funding to keep the doors open in the new year.

Environmental protection and conservation are winners in Governor Wolf’s proposed state budget. His proposal to levy a 5 percent severance tax on natural gas extraction would generate almost $1 billion in new revenue a year, a portion of which would go to a number of important environmental programs.

The governor would use $40 million a year from the severance tax to finance a $225 million clean energy bond that would be distributed in the following way:

More than two dozen advocacy and direct-service organizations from across the commonwealth, including the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, have united to champion measures to help working families care for their children and get ahead.

Tens of thousands of hard-working, low-wage earners in Pennsylvania – such as domestic care providers, fast food employees, and retail workers – struggle every day to provide for their families. Despite steady income and long workdays, many of these families still have trouble making ends meet.

In case you missed it last week, the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center (PBPC) launched a redesigned web site, making it easier to access the center's analysis, commentaries, blog posts, webinars, and much more. The site has a new look, but more importantly it puts everything you need right at your fingertips: